Report on Burrows' call to CYF released

9.30am

Child, Youth and Family call centre staff are to be more closely supervised and their training revised after a phone call from the father of murdered Featherston girl Coral Burrows was not treated as a child abuse notification when it should have been, a critical report says.

Child, Youth and Family (CYF) today issued the findings of an inquiry by Ailsa Duffy QC into the handling of the phone call from Ron Burrows to the department on January 21.

CYF initially denied the call, but then acknowledged it had received the call.

Mr Burrows made the call after becoming concerned about the care being given Coral and his eight-year-old son Storm, while they lived with their mother Jeanna Cremen and her partner Steven Williams.

Eight months later, Williams beat Coral to death after she refused to get out of the car and go to school, and dumped her body in scrub near Lake Onoke (Ferry), around 30km from Featherston.

The report found the call was dealt with by a social worker who should have treated it as a notification of child abuse but did not.

The department needed to develop clearer policy around what constituted a notification.

The Department's orientation and induction of social workers into its call centre was found wanting and mandatory policies regarding clinical supervision were not adhered to in the call centre.

Ms Duffy found supervision in the call centre did not occur in respect of decisions about notifications.

Acting Chief Executive Brenda Pilott said today the department accepted Ms Duffy's conclusions and it had apologised to Mr Burrows for its response to his telephone call and not treating the information he provided as a notification.

She said where possible the department would make immediate changes to its operations in response to the concerns raised.

"The overarching objective we want to achieve is to improve the provision of professional support systems in the call centre to make sure that our social workers have the resources they need to do their work well," Ms Pilott said in a statement.

Ms Pilott said no blame could be attributed to the particular social worker identified in the report, despite the person failing to make a notification or even adequate notes relating to the call in which Mr Burrows told the social worker six-year-old Coral was regularly soiling her pants and her eight-year-old brother Storm acting aggressively and had punched a hole in a wall.

Ms Pilott said work had already begun clarifying policy around the identification and treatment of notifications. Work on the policy was being carried out as part of a baseline review expected to be completed in 2004.

However, she said CYF would put in place interim improved procedures by February 2004 and final arrangements would be in place by December 2004.

A review of training and orientation processes at the call centre was already under way and the level of support for all new social workers joining the call centre in the future would be intensified, she said.

In relation to supervision, Ms Pilott said supervisors would review calls on a weekly basis to see if they should be treated as notifications or not until final decisions were made about the centre's recording practices.

She said CYF was considering the report's recommendation to record all incoming calls and would make a decision by March 2004.

The report follows two critical reports last month into CYF's treatment of Masterton sisters Saliel Aplin, 12, and Olympia Jetson, 11, who were murdered by their stepfather Bruce Howse in December 2001.

The reports, by CYF and the Office of the Commissioner of Children found some workers had not done their jobs properly and department processes and procedures had not been followed.

The department has since said it is seeking an extra 90 social workers.

Coral Burrows report

- NZPA